Site of the 9/11 attacks in New York: photo by Lucas Jackson/AFP via the Guardian, 29 December 2014

Umu Fambulle stands over her
husband Ibrahim after he staggered and fell, knocking him unconscious in
an Ebola ward in Monrovia, Liberia, on 15 August 2014. ‘Ibrahim
died in the blue room where he fell. He had struggled to his feet to
move away from the corpses, to a different classroom in the Ebola
holding centre. As he staggered toward the door, he lost his balance,
fell backwards, and his head hit the concrete floor with a loud popping
sound. I’m still haunted by the memory of his wife Omu rushing in,
standing over him, unable to caress or comfort him, unsure what to do.’: photo by John Moore 15 August 2014 via The Guardian, 28 December 2014

A South Sudanese man from the Dinka ethnic group stands among cattle in Yirol on 12 February 2014. ‘After
some weeks in South Sudan spent documenting the conflict destroying the
world’s youngest country, I started looking for the other side of
Africa, the one where man and nature live side by side. I took this
image in a cattle camp during the blue hour. Man, animals, smoke and
light living together, recalling the ancestral nature of the human
being.’: photo by Fabio Bucciarelli/AFP. 12 February 2014 via The Guardian, 28 December 2014

Police block a road in Kiev, Ukraine, on 24 January 2014. ‘After
two months of relatively peaceful but persistent protests, the
situation in late January turned markedly confrontational. I arrived
back in Kiev only the night before, and the icy scene that greeted me
that morning was otherworldly. Walls of burning tyres periodically
doused by police water hoses created an ether of steam and smoke that
filtered the winter light. I climbed atop a barricade to peek over and
through the haze saw this line of police officers looking back at me.’: photo by Brendan Hoffman, 24 January 2014 via The Guardian, 28 December 2014

Donetsk,
Ukraine, 26 July. Members of the Ukrainian State Emergency Service
search for bodies in a field near the crash site of the Malaysia
Airlines flight MH17 in the rebel-occupied Donetsk region of Ukraine.
The airliner was
believed shot down by a missile, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala
Lumpur, killing all 298 passengers and crew: photo by Bulent Kilic, 26 July 2014 via The Guardian, 30 December 2014

A woman cries as she stands
on the road with her luggage after she left her home near the village of
Grabovo, Ukraine, on 2 August 2014. ‘It took hours to arrive at
the village of Grabovo, the crash site of the downed Malaysia Airlines
flight MH17. We were waiting for officials from the Organisation for
Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to photograph them at the
scene. Then I saw this young girl crying. She was leaving her home. I
took just one picture as she didn’t want me to take more. I understood
from friends that she had just lost somebody in the village she was
leaving.’: photo by Bulent Kilic/AFP via The Guardian, 28 December 2014

Residents emerge to receive
food aid distributed by the UN Relief and Works Agency at the besieged
al-Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Syria: photo by UNRWA/Reuters, 31 January 2014 via The Guardian, 28 December 2014

Sanliurfa, Turkey, 23 October. Islamic
State militants stand during the explosion of an air strike on Tilsehir
hill near the Turkish border at Yumurtalik village in October: photo by Bulent Kilic/AFP via the Guardian, 28 December 2014

Islamic State militants were being photographed the moment an air strike explosion goes off on 23 October 2014. ‘I
was in the village of Yumurtalik on the Turkish side of the border.
Isis were on a hill about 1km away from me on the Syrian side. It was
about 6.15pm and there was about 10 minutes left until sunset. A friend
who was with me said: “Can you imagine an air strike now?” Five minutes
later, this is what happened. I was already photographing members of
Isis when an aircraft bombed the hill. Within 30 minutes it was dark and
we had to leave the village, it wasn’t safe at night.’: photo by Bulent Kilic/AFP via the Guardian, 28 December 2014

Suruc,
Turkey. Smoke rises from the Syrian city of Kobani, following
airstrikes by the US led coalition, seen from a hilltop outside Syria: photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP via The Guardian, 17 November 2014

People run for shelter from a hailstorm on the beach at the river Ob in Siberia, Russia, on 12 July 2014. ‘It
was a very hot day which is unusual for a summer in Siberia. My
girlfriend and I decided to go to a city beach. When we got there the
weather started rapidly changing for the worse and when we reached the
water there was a very strong wind. I turned on the camera on my mobile
phone just to shoot the trees, which were swaying wildly. Suddenly it
started hailing. I continued taking photographs until we were literally
being bombarded and then we rushed back to the car.’: photo by Nikita Dudnik/AP, 12 July 2014 via the Guardian, 28 December 2014

Unidentified next-of-kin entering the
holding area at Changi T2 for relatives of the missing @AirAsia
#QZ8501: image via The Straits Times @STcom, 27 December 2014

Screen at Changi T1 showing the details of the @AirAsia
#QZ8501 bound for Singapore from Surabaya that lost contact. @AirAsia
#QZ8501: image via The Straits Times @STcom, 27 December 2014

Airport staff holds up a sign at Changi's T2 to direct family members & friends seeking info on @AirAsia
#QZ8501: image via The Straits Times @STcom, 27 December 2014

A member of the Indonesian
military looks out of the window during a search and rescue (SAR)
operation for missing Malaysian air carrier AirAsia flight QZ8501, over
the waters of the Java Sea on December 29, 2014: photo by Juni Kriswanto/AFP via the Guardian, 30 December 2014

A view from an Indonesian search and rescue aircraft over the Java Sea of debris that may come from the missing AirAsia flight: photo by Bay Ismoyo/AFP via The Guardian, 30 December 2014

Sunday, 28 December 2014

In an echo of events last
week after the shooting, officers outside the church turn their backs on
a video monitor as de Blasio speaks: photo by Shannon Stapleton/Reuters via The Guardian, 27 December 2014

Police turn backs on de Blasio at funeral of NYPD officer Rafael RamosAmanda Holpuch in New York via The Guardian, 27 December 2014

Hundreds of police officers turned their backs on the New York mayor
Bill de Blasio on Saturday as he spoke during the funeral service for
Rafael Ramos, one of two New York Police Department officers killed in an ambush in Brooklyn last week. Thousands
of officers gathered outside Christ Tabernacle Church in
Queens for the funeral, where speakers included vice-president Joe
Biden, New York governor Andrew Cuomo and NYPD commissioner Bill
Bratton.Ramos and his partner, Wenjian Liu, were shot dead last Saturday by
Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who had posted anti-police statements on
social-media. Police have said Brinsley, who killed himself, was
troubled and had first shot and wounded his ex-girlfriend in Baltimore
before travelling to Brooklyn.At a hospital after the shooting, the police union’s president,
Patrick Lynch, and others turned their backs on the mayor in a sign of
disrespect. Lynch blamed the mayor then for the officers’ deaths and
said he had blood on his hands, because of comments made by de Blasio in
relation to protests in the city last month over the death of Eric
Garner, a Staten Island man, at the hands of police in July.“Our hearts are aching, we’re feeling this physically,” De Blasio
said at the funeral, in remarks greeted inside the church with polite
applause.

“All of this city is grieving … for so many reasons but the
most personal is that we’ve lost such a good man.”

New York mayor Bill de Blasio
arrives with his wife, Chirlane McCray, police commissioner Bill
Bratton and his wife Rikki Klieman. De Blasio has been criticised by
police unions since the shooting of officers Ramos and Liu, regarding
his comments about widespread protests over police tactics, leading to
concern about how he would be received at the funeral: photo by Kevin Mazur via The Guardian, 27 December 2014

Outside the church, many officers turned their backs on screens showing the service.Asked by television reporters outside the church for comment on the
officers’ decision to turn their backs, Lynch said: “The feeling is
real, but today is about mourning, tomorrow is about debate.” Pressed on the point, Lynch said: “We have to understand the betrayal that they feel.”On Friday, the mayor briefly attended Ramos’ wake at the church in
Queens. There was no noticeable reaction from officers upon his arrival,
and Ramos’s family said they would welcome the mayor’s presence at the
funeral.The
same day, an anonymous person paid for a an aerial sign to be flown
over New York City. It read: "de Blasio, our backs have turned to you." On Saturday, De Blasio and Lynch nodded at each other as they left the church and lined up to wait for the casket.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio leaves Christ Tabernacle Church following the funeral service for NYPD officer Rafael Ramos: photo by Mike Segar/Reuters via The Guardian, 27 December 2014

Eric Garner death: New York mayor gives personal message and calls for calm

Bill de Blasio says he taught his mixed-race son Dante how to ‘take
special care’ around police officers in emotional speech in New York

Tom McCarthy in New York via The Guardian, 3 December 2014

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio applied the lessons of his personal experience as he sought to
forestall a moment of crisis for the city on Wednesday, in the wake of a
grand jury decision not to indict a police officer in the death of
Staten Island man Eric Garner.

Garner, who was black, died in July after being put in a chokehold by New York
Police Department officer Daniel Pantaleo, who is white. Pantaleo has
been suspended from the force pending an internal investigation. The use
of chokeholds has long been banned by the department.

De Blasio, who is white, said that he and his wife, Chirlane McCray,
who is black, had spent years teaching their mixed-race son, Dante de
Blasio, 17, how to “take special care” around police officers.

The two “have had to [talk to] Dante for years about the dangers he
may face,” de Blasio said in an emotional news conference. “Because of a
history that still hangs over us, we’ve had to train him, as families
have … in how to take special care in any interaction with the police
officers who are there to protect him.

“There’s a history we have to overcome,” De Blasio continued. “Our
history forces us to say black lives matter. It should be self-evident.”

Happy birthday and last first day of school, Dante.#BacktoSchoolNYC: image via Chirlane McCray @Chirlane, 29 June 2014

The
New York police department has long denied racial profiling in its law
enforcement practices, despite a finding by federal prosecutors in 2000 that the practice was routine for street crime units.

Activists in New York City, who a week earlier had assembled to
protest a similar decision in the Ferguson, Missouri, death of Michael
Brown, planned at least five new protests for Wednesday and Thursday after the Garner decision.

The mayor called on protesters to remain nonviolent, saying he had
just met Ben Garner, Eric Garner’s father. “Eric would not have wanted
violence,” the mayor quoted the father as saying.

De Blasio acknowledged the widespread discontent the grand jury decision was likely to cause.

“It’s a very emotional day for our city,” he said. “It’s a very
painful day for so many people of this city.” The mayor said the country
was at a crossroads, calling discrimination and inequality before the
law “all our problem.”

“Anyone who believes in the values of this country should feel a call
to action right now,” De Blasio said. “It is a moment that change must
happen.”

Re-energized by the spirit of New Yorkers at #PrideNYC today!: image via Chirlane McCray @Chirlane, 29 June 2014

So pleased to support NYC's next generation of artists with @DoingArt2gether!: image @DoingArt2gether!: image via Chirlane McCray @Chirlane, 24 March 2014

So pleased to support NYC's next generation of artists with @DoingArt2gether!: image Can you rock this? I can rock it like this. Thanks, Daryl. #RunDMC cc: @DoingArt2gether: image via Chirlane McCray @Chirlane, 26 March 2014

Mayor says he ‘respects the process’ of grand jury: NYPD to conduct its own inquiry into death of Eric Garner

Joanna Walters in New York via The Guardian, 7 December 2014

New York mayor Bill de Blasio
on Sunday refused to endorse a grand jury’s decision not to indict a
police officer over the choking death of a man in the city last summer.
De Blasio also doubled down on controversial comments he made about the
risks faced by children of colour, such as his son Dante, when they
encounter police officers.

Appearing
on ABC, de Blasio three times refused to respond to the
question of whether he respected the decision by a grand jury not to
bring charges against Daniel Pantaleo, the police officer who put Staten
Island resident Eric Garner in a chokehold during an arrest attempt.
The decision led to large-scale protests in the city and across the
country, which on Sunday continued into a fifth day. On
Saturday night, violence broke out at one such demonstration, in
California.

After de Blasio had deflected the question, saying “as an executive
in public service” he respected “the judicial process, but …” host
George Stephanopoulos interrupted to ask: “So you respect the grand
jury’s decision?”

De
Blasio replied, with emphasis on the last word: “I respect the
process.” He went on to talk about initiating a “systemic” retraining of
police officers in New York, in order to “fix the relationship between
the police and the community”.

Stephanopoulos countered: “So you respect the process but not the
decision?”De Blasio gave the hint of a smile but did not reply.

He
said he would “absolutely cooperate” with a federal investigation now
underway to establish if the police action against Garner violated his
civil rights.

Appearing on different Sunday talkshows, de Blasio and New York
police commissioner William Bratton attempted to put up a united front
in the face of accusations from the police union last week that the
mayor “threw the police under the bus” when he hinted at racism in the
ranks. Bratton called de Blasio “one of the best I have ever worked
with” in his long career in charge of law enforcement in a variety of
cities across the US.

The
mayor, however, strengthened controversial comments he made earlier
this week. De Blasio, who is white, sparked controversy when he said
that he and his wife Chirlane McCray, who is black, had long trained
their teenage son Dante to “take special care” in any encounter with
police officers.

Happy Mother's Day!: image via Chirlane McCray @Chirlane, 11 May 2014

“We have to have an honest conversation in this country about the
history of racism and the problem that has caused parents to feel their
children may be in danger in their dynamics with police, when in fact
the police are there to protect them,” he said.

“What parents have done for decades who have children of colour,
especially young men of colour, is train them to be very careful
whenever they have an encounter with a police officer. It’s different
for a white child. That’s just the reality of this country.”

He and McCray had lectured their son “from early on” on how to respond to the police, he said.

“We said, ‘Look, if a police officer stops you, do whatever he tells
you to do. Do not move suddenly, do not reach for your cellphone,’
because, you know, sadly, there is a greater chance it might be
misinterpreted if it was a young man of colour.”

De Blasio said he was striving for a day when every child could be
told equally “not only are the police there to protect you but they are
going to assume that the young person is an innocent, law-abiding young
person”.

“I have talked to many families of colour,” he said. “They have had
to have the same conversation with their sons. It’s a painful
conversation. We all want to look up to figures of authority and
everyone knows the police protect us. But there is that fear that there
could be that one moment of misunderstanding with a young man of colour
and that young man may never come back.”

People march though traffic on 10th Avenue in New York to protest the police killing of Eric Garner: photo by Michael Nagle/EPA via the Guardian, 4 December 2014

De Blasio’s comments were delivered against a backdrop of continued protests in many cities
against recent incidents of police brutality and charges of a lack of
accountability for police officers who have killed civilians.

De Blasio said a “rift” between law enforcement and the public was a fundamental problem that had to be overcome.

Commissioner Bratton said he disagreed with the head of his officers’
union describing de Blasio’s first comments on this subject as
“throwing them under the bus”. Speaking on CBS, Bratton said the NYPD
would now conduct its own internal inquiry to establish whether the
officers involved in the arrest which led to the death of Eric Garner had violated department policies and procedures.

That inquiry was likely to take three to four months and would
probably return a decision before the federal government concludes its
civil rights investigation, Bratton said.

Asked what he thought of the dying words of Garner, who was heard on a
video taken by a bystanders saying “I can’t breathe” 11 times, Bratton
said: “I don’t think that anyone who watches that video is undisturbed.”

How can you NOT indict police for choking to death an unarmed man who screams '#ICantBreathe' 11 times? #Seattle: image via Team-LIBer8 @Team_LIBer8, 27 December 2014

But he then appeared to depart from de Blasio’s apparent skepticism
to hint at an element of concession for the officers involved.

“It always looks awful,” he said. “We have an expression: ‘lawful but
awful’. We are going to have to see if the actions were a violation of
our policies and procedures.”

Both
Bratton and de Blasio spoke of extensive retraining and re-equipment
plans for the NYPD, including a pilot programme to test the wearing of
body cameras.

“There is probably not a department in America doing more on these issues,” said Bratton.

Meanwhile an opinion poll issued by Bloomberg Politics concluded that
more than half of Americans think race relations have deteriorated
under the administration of Barack Obama, the first African American
president.

A demonstrator in New York after the Eric Garner grand jury failure to indict: photo by Yana Paskova via The Guardian, 4 December 2014

Eric Garner death: New York mayor gives personal message and calls for calmBill de Blasio says he taught his mixed-race son Dante how to ‘take
special care’ around police officers in emotional speech in New York

Tom McCarthy in New York via The Guardian, 3 December 2014

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio applied the lessons of his personal experience as he sought to
forestall a moment of crisis for the city on Wednesday, in the wake of a
grand jury decision not to indict a police officer in the death of
Staten Island man Eric Garner.

Garner, who was black, died in July after being put in a chokehold by New York
Police Department officer Daniel Pantaleo, who is white. Pantaleo has
been suspended from the force pending an internal investigation. The use
of chokeholds has long been banned by the department.

De Blasio, who is white, said that he and his wife, Chirlane McCray,
who is black, had spent years teaching their mixed-race son, Dante de
Blasio, 17, how to “take special care” around police officers.

The two “have had to [talk to] Dante for years about the dangers he
may face,” de Blasio said in an emotional news conference. “Because of a
history that still hangs over us, we’ve had to train him, as families
have … in how to take special care in any interaction with the police
officers who are there to protect him.

“There’s a history we have to overcome,” De Blasio continued. “Our
history forces us to say black lives matter. It should be self-evident.”

The
New York police department has long denied racial profiling in its law
enforcement practices, despite a finding by federal prosecutors in 2000 that the practice was routine for street crime units.

Police clash with protesters on the West Side Highway in New York: photo by Yana Paskova via The Guardian, 4 December 2014

Activists in New York City, who a week earlier had assembled to
protest a similar decision in the Ferguson, Missouri, death of Michael
Brown, planned at least five new protests for Wednesday and Thursday after the Garner decision.

The mayor called on protesters to remain nonviolent, saying he had
just met Ben Garner, Eric Garner’s father. “Eric would not have wanted
violence,” the mayor quoted the father as saying.

De Blasio acknowledged the widespread discontent the grand jury decision was likely to cause.

“It’s a very emotional day for our city,” he said. “It’s a very
painful day for so many people of this city.” The mayor said the country
was at a crossroads, calling discrimination and inequality before the
law “all our problem.”

“Anyone who believes in the values of this country should feel a call
to action right now,” De Blasio said. “It is a moment that change must
happen.”

'I Can't Breathe' T-shirts see high-school basketball team disinvited from event: Mendocino High School teams out of Fort Bragg tournament: Too few members of girls team promised not to wear the shirts

Associated Press in San Francisco Saturday 27 December 2014

A
high school basketball tournament on the Northern California coast has
become the latest flashpoint in nationwide protests over police killings
of unarmed black men.

The boys and girls varsity basketball teams from Mendocino High
School were disinvited from a tournament that starts on Monday at nearby
Fort Bragg High, because of concerns players would wear T-shirts with
the words “I Can’t Breathe” printed on them while warming up.

Several professional basketball players have worn “I Can’t Breathe”
shirts during pre-game warmups, as have stars of the NFL. The slogan
refers to the final word of Eric Garner,
a New York man who died after being placed in an illegal chokehold
during an arrest by NYPD officers in July. A grand jury decision not to
indict the officer involved led to widespread protests in New York last
month.

The deaths of other black men at the hands of police -– most notably
that of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, in Ferguson, Missouri in
August -- have also contributed to protests across the US.

Mendocino unified school district superintendent Jason Morse said the
boys team was reinstated after all but one player agreed not to wear
the shirts anywhere on the Fort Bragg campus during the three-day
tournament, but too few girls accepted the condition for the team to
field a tournament squad.

Brian Triplett, the athletic director at Fort Bragg High, did not
return a call and email seeking comment. Principal Rebecca Walker issued
a written statement on Friday saying school administrators respected
the Mendocino teams “for paying attention to what is going on in the
world around them” and that the T-shirts were being prohibited as a
security precaution.

“To protect the safety and well-being of all tournament participants
it is necessary to ensure that all political statements and or protests
are kept away from this tournament,” wrote Walker, who said she was
speaking on behalf of the athletic director and the Fort Bragg school
superintendent. “We are a small school district that simply does not
have the resources to ensure the safety and well-being of our staff,
students and guests at the tournament should someone get upset and
choose to act out.”

Mendocino
varsity teams first wore the “I Can’t Breathe” t-shirts before a game
with Fort Bragg on 16 December, according to the girls coach, Caedyn
Feehan. The girls also wore them before games at two other tournaments
and didn’t receive any blowback, Feehan said.

“I didn’t even know what it meant. I thought it was a joke about how I
had conditioned them so hard,” Feehan said. “None of the administrators
knew what it was or that any of them were doing it in advance. This was
entirely for their cause that they had strong feelings about.”

Professional basketball players such as LeBron James, Derrick Rose
and Kyrie Irving wore “I Can’t Breathe” shirts during warm-ups this
month without repercussions from the NBA.

After Kobe Bryant and other
Lakers players wore them before a game and on the bench on 9 December,
coach Byron Scott said he viewed it as a matter of “freedom of choice
and freedom of speech”.

That’s how Marc Woods, whose 16-year-old son Connor plans to sit out
the tournament, sees it. Connor wore the t-shirt at the 16 December game
in the name of team solidarity, but “now that’s become a first
amendment violation, that’s what he is fired up about”, the father said.

Woods said he was outraged by what he sees as using intimidation to
silence players and fans. Fort Bragg administrators have warned
spectators who plan to protest the t-shirt ban that they will be asked
to leave, he said.

“It doesn’t take a lot to suppress the exchange of ideas when you put fear into it,” Woods said.

Both schools are in Mendocino County, known for redwood forests,
rugged coastline and marijuana-growing, located 120 miles north of San
Francisco. The student bodies at the two schools are 1% black and 50%
white and 41% Hispanic at Fort Bragg, 75% white and 9% Hispanic at
Mendocino.

A county sheriff’s deputy, Ricky Del Fiorentino, was killed in March
by a man suspected of murder and carjacking in Eugene, Oregon. The
suspect was killed by a Fort Bragg police officer.

Walker referenced Del Fiorentino’s death, saying: “We simply feel
this issue is too emotionally charged to allow such a demonstration to
happen in our tournament and be able to ensure the safety and well-being
of all involved.”

Phoenix Suns’ Markieff
Morris, left, and his brother, Marcus, warm up prior to an NBA
basketball game against the Milwaukee Bucks: photo by Matt York/AP via the Guardian, 27 December 2014